Capitalist Corner

February 15, 2007

Does Anyone Think We Shouldn't Attack Iran?

Ken Baer has an overwrought post up attacking me for suggesting that Democrats should publicly state that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons will not trigger a military response. Baer, in a graf that reveals his own lack of engagement with the issue, wonders, "And as for those who doubt the strategy of no nukes, no options off the table, my only question is: what is that based on? Again, is there any person with real experience with the Iranians, diplomacy, or nonproliferation who has argued that? If so, let’s hear it. But – to my mind – rightly, the major candidates are listening to seasoned experts on this issue, and are thus sticking with the above formulation of no nuclear Iran, no options off the table."

Well, Matt gets us started off with two, noting that, "Ray Takeyh, Council on Foreign Relations Fellow and author of two books on Iran along with Vali Nasr, another CFR fellow and author of three books on Iran or Shia politics, think we should eschew military threats in favor of engagement. Joseph Cirincione, formerly senior associate and director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and currently something or other at the Center for American Progress, thinks there's no military option whatsoever here."

Ken Pollack makes three, as he recently said that "a war with Iran would be very messy and would cost us a lot more than we would gain. While many members of the Administration agree with that, others do not, and some seem willing to risk it to accomplish other goals. I am very concerned both by the President’s military moves toward Iran (like moving a second aircraft carrier and Patriot anti-missile batteries to the Persian Gulf, and ordering the U.S. military to use “all necessary means” to shut down Iranian activities in Iraq) and his unnecessarily threatening rhetoric toward them. Some degree of quiet pressure on Iran to stop their more damaging operations in Iraq could be useful, and the Iranians probably would back down under those circumstances; but the President’s policy risks engaging Iran’s nationalist pride, its strategic interests, and its real fear of the United States." And Bruce Jentleson, Baer's co-contributor at TPM Cafe thinks, "the use of military force against Iran likely would set off a rallying effect around both the regime and a nuclear weapons program. This is one way in which the presence of regime change as an option has a counterproductive effect on
current diplomacy."

But that's not all!

Scott Ritter, who we of course can't listen to because he got Iraq exactly right, is against hyping war with Iran. Iranian-born Shahram Chubin, author of the best book on the subject, is fundamentally pessimistic about any military options, and makes exactly the argument I did when he writes, "After all, the only conceivable justification for Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons might be that they are needed as a deterrent against the United States. Yet, it is in fact only Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons that makes a U.S. attack on Iran at all likely." My argument, of course, was that we short-circuit that cycle by taking our attack off the table.

Flynt Leverett thinks proposing war with Iran is nuts ("analyses have raised serious doubts that U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would delay significantly its nuclear development...[and] Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program relatively rapidly. At the same time, U.S. military action against Iran almost certainly would have profoundly negative consequences for a range of other U.S. interests"), while James Fallows summarized the conclusions of wargame composed of experts by saying, "The experts disagreed on some details but were nearly unanimous on one crucial point: what might seem America’s ace in the hole—the ability to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations in a pre-emptive air strike—was a fantasy."

Meanwhile, if you listen to the candidates Baer is talking about, they're perfectly aware war with Iran is a stupid idea. Indeed, it was talking with Edwards himself that helped convince me of the essential idiocy of the "no options off the table, no nuclear Iran" formulation. Here's Edwards, the recipient of all that star advice Baer is enamored with:

what happens if America were to militarily strike Iran? Well you take this unstable, radical leader, and you make him a hero -- that’s the first thing that’ll happen. The Iranian people will rally around him. The second thing that will happen is they will retaliate. And they have certainly some potential for retaliating here in the United States through some of these terrorist organizations they’re close to, but we’ve got over a hundred thousand people right next door. And most people believe that they have an infrastructure for retaliation inside Iraq. So, that’s the second thing that’ll happen. And the third thing is there are a lot of analysts who believe that an air strike or a missile strike is not enough to be successful...I think would have very bad consequences.

Nevertheless, Edwards, like all the other "serious candidates," is keeping "the options open." And the reasons seem clear enough: Crafters of elite consensus opinion will absolutely pillory a Democrat who publicly swears off the use of force in a situation. It clicks right into a preexisting narrative about the party. Were I Edwards, I'd twist away from my questions too. But what Baer is doing is far more pernicious, pretending that the entire weight of wise, elite opinion agrees that Iran should be publicly threatened.

Not only is that actually untrue, but the folks Baer is grouping within his superteam of advisors are exactly the crew who got Iraq so very wrong, and this tactic of Baer's -- to marginalize competing arguments -- is exactly what enabled the previous disaster. About four years ago, John Kerry, and John Edwards, and Richard Gephardt, and Joe Lieberman -- who together comprised every initially "serious" candidate for the 2004 Democratic nomination for president -- listened to their advisors and voted "yes" on the Iraq War resolution. Four years later, every one of them but Joe, who's basically become a Republican, wishes they could take back that vote. Ken Baer, it seems, has learned nothing about the fallibility of that process, or the dangers of enabling Bush's belligerence.

Comments

The unwillingess of leading candidates to take options off the table has less to do with the wise counsel of "seasoned experts'--give me experts with less seasoning, please!--and more to do with various political pressures, including the tired old Democratic fear of seeming soft.

That said, Ezra, you conflate a couple ideas here--the viability of an attack on Iran and the viability of threatening such an attack. Not the same thing. Fallows and Jentelson speak only to the implications of an attack not to the policy of talking tough. After all, American policy during the Cold War was to threaten an attack that would have been devastating to both sides.

Now, you could argue that threatening an attack that would be devastating to both sides (and that each knows would be devastating to the other) is ineffective or even immoral, but you don't quite make that argument.

Posted by: david mizner | Feb 15, 2007 11:12:22 AM

There's a good reason to take the option of nukes "off the table" --- leaving it on the table is insane.

Posted by: Douglas Watts | Feb 15, 2007 11:12:40 AM

<<>>

I suppose I agree with this but when you consider that Israel most likely has nuclear weapons that can strike Iran, yet appear to be less likely to use them, except as a deterrent to a first strike, we hope, what that says about the U.S. gives one pause.

Posted by: JT Davis | Feb 15, 2007 11:13:46 AM

Iranian-born Shahram Chubin, author of the best book on the subject, is fundamentally pessimistic about any military options, and makes exactly the argument I did when he writes, "After all, the only conceivable justification for Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons might be that they are needed as a deterrent against the United States. Yet, it is in fact only Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons that makes a U.S. attack on Iran at all likely." My argument, of course, was that we short-circuit that cycle by taking our attack off the table.

I suppose I agree with this but when you consider that Israel most likely has nuclear weapons that can strike Iran, yet appear to be less likely to use them, except as a deterrent to a first strike, we hope, what that says about the U.S. gives one pause.

sorry for the double post

Posted by: JT Davis | Feb 15, 2007 11:16:10 AM

Whenever anybody posits "America's interests" in this or that region as a reason to do anything, I want to start swinging with my fists. Baer has laid an opaque gelatinous blogoblob post on Huffy's site. And the moral? Gangoblogs never work.

I don't think Joe L. wishes he could take back his yes vote. If anything, he'd vote for it as many times as he could.

Posted by: Sal | Feb 15, 2007 11:27:18 AM

Ken Pollack makes three, as he recently said that "a war with Iran would be very messy and would cost us a lot more than we would gain.

Kenneth Pollack? Him coming out against war with Iran almost makes me think that the mullahs must need a whacking after all.

Posted by: Clive A. | Feb 15, 2007 11:30:24 AM

All that is accomplished by "keeping all options on the table" is that we encourage Iran to get their back up. Iran may or may not agree to some kind of nuclear deal, but their regime is never going to make concessions if it appears to everyone that they capitulated to American military threats. They need some kind of face-saving component to the deal, and the tougher we talk, the harder it is to make that happen.

Posted by: Steve | Feb 15, 2007 11:30:51 AM

Wait, it's one thing to say that candidates shouldn't be making warlike noises, and another to say that they should forswear war. Baer seems to be arguing the latter, and you seem to be addressing the former.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Feb 15, 2007 11:30:59 AM

The whole "options" thing is a big game anyhow. Every option is always on the table with every country, always. The question is whether we want to state that it's on the table or not. By doing so, we're sending a very specific signal about what our intentions are. Particularly with the crew in the Whitehouse now, who have clearly proven that even "last resorts" are often the only option they'll choose.

Imagine if someone went around loudly announcing that they will kill anyone who tries to kill them. Sure, that option is always available to them, but it's a fairly hostile message to be sending people. And it's the same thing with Iran. This isn't about real options. This is about messages. And I'd prefer to not send Iran the same message that we sent to Iraq; ie, that we will attack them no matter what they do.

Only the neo-cons believe that diplomacy should begin with explict threats. But then again, neo-cons are convinced that diplomacy is a fraud. And in their hands, it is.

(Though his tenure as Worst TPM Guest Poster Ever ought have made that clear.)

Posted by: pseudonymous in nc | Feb 15, 2007 11:44:47 AM

Good point by Doctor Biobrain.

Posted by: david mizner | Feb 15, 2007 11:45:34 AM

The one we sometimes call Tim points out the disconnect here. This is what you quote Baer saying:

The reason why Obama, Clinton, and Edwards are all refusing to take the military option off the table is because there is no credible expert on Iran, nonproliferation, or any combination of the two who would advise them to do so.

As far as I can tell, none of the sources you cite call for taking force off the table. As I argued in your previous thread, there seems to me too much emphasis on this formality in publius' and your way of making what is otherwise basically a very good point.

And by the way, it's not the case that none of the folks mentioned here are addressing "threatening talk' as well. Pollack does, and Jentleson does, and Cirincione does, and in the above post, a number more do. Some are talking about the danger of an attack -- which is much more likely if we keep setting up a nuclear weapons tripwire -- but others are making the same point I originally made, which is that threatening an attack taps into nationalist sentiment in Iran and makes their pursuit of nukes seem both more just and urgent.

There are lots more REAL Iran experts who are opposed to the "option" of launching a war (which incidentally would be a crime under interntional law)

Read about them here: http://www.antiwarpetition.com

Posted by: Hass | Feb 15, 2007 12:09:25 PM

And by the way, it's not the case that none of the folks mentioned here are addressing "threatening talk' as well.

Which ones call for taking force off the table? I think you're making Baer say more than he actually does. You might disagree that leaving force on the table is helpful, but he doesn't argue we should be bellicose, which is what you and your experts rule out.

No, they argue that we shouldn't go to war and, in some cases, that threatening war -- which we're certainly doing -- is counterproductive. I have a longer post at Tapped (linked from the main page) explaining why I'm not convinced that the "on the table" and "let's go to war" positions are all that different, but even if you think they are, these guys, in many cases, are arguing for shutting up about a war we can't win.

It is, after the profoundly ill-considered and immoral Iraq debacle, those who even mumble about a strike on Iran who deserve to be marginalized and dismissed out of hand. Excellent post, by the way.

Posted by: MarkC | Feb 15, 2007 12:43:24 PM

I am sick and tired of people who parrot the talking-point "no options off the table," be it George W. Bush, Condaleeza Rice or even John Edwards. What the f#ck does this mean to any decent American? Can one beltway stenographer -- just once -- ask what the heck these options are?

Mr. Bush, are we going to round up a couple million innocent Arabs, throw them on trains, send them to death camps and gas them? Is that a viable option? Is that option on the table or off the table?

Ms. Rice, "some people say" we should nuke Mecca and torture the testicles of all Arab children under the age of 13. Are those options on-or-off the table?

Mr. Edwards, you want to be the next president -- same questions directed to you: How do you feel about death camps and nuking Holy sites and torturing the testicles of infants -- are those options on the table or off the table?

If you can you imagine Wolf Blitzer asking these same questions to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and/or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about nuking Jerusalem and Manhattan, and either responding, well Wolf, we can't take these options off the table, that would be like a declaration to war. The double-standards are appalling. No wonder the world hates Americans -- Repubs and Dems alike.

Posted by: Leo Drongo | Feb 15, 2007 12:46:52 PM

No, they argue that we shouldn't go to war and, in some cases, that threatening war -- which we're certainly doing -- is counterproductive.

Not sure what your "no" refers to. They don't call for taking force off the table, which is pretty much a non-issue. Shutting up about a war we can't win might be a good idea, but that doesn't require and probably wouldn't be materially helped by formally taking any options off the table.

I'm a Californian transplanted to DC, and surprisingly at peace with it. Or at least I was till it started getting colder. Job-wise, I'm the staff writer for The American Prospect. In the past, I've written for the Washington Monthly, the LA Weekly, The LA Times, The New Republic, Slate, The New York Sun, and the Gadflyer. I'm a damn good cook. No, really. Want to know more? E-mail, I'm friendly.